Please note that I am proposing a Policy Change in this post and not a Software Change on purpose. That's because software changes are hard to make, and policy changes are easy. I can propose a million changes to the chat software, and in fact, many have been already proposed.

It happened again. It keeps happening and no one is doing anything, so I've decided to.

I don't mind other languages. In fact, גם אני לפעמים מדבר עברית בצ'אט. As long as it's contained and doesn't bother anyone, let them be. But it's not.

It's very often now that I see messages in other languages getting flagged in chat. Those flags appear to anyone with 10k+ active in chat, and it's getting rather annoying seeing a popup with a bunch of nonsense that you can't read. Every. Single. Time

Seeing that room localized flags are not happening in the next 6-8 weeks, I am suggesting to eliminate rooms which are designed for chat in languages other than English on Stack Overflow.

This isn't one of our language Q&A sites. We don't allow anything other than English on the main site, we shouldn't allow it in chat.

I have the feeling there have been some more comments here. Anyway, I don't really like the idea. Chats are a separate thing and should be handled less strict. The most important thing is that someone at the moderation level speaks the language in case, so exotic languages might not be a good idea. More intelligent solution for the flagging would also be highly welcome but are quite improbable unfortunately. I think that for example insults in a foreign language are as grave incidents like insults in English and therefore moderation is important.
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TrilarionJul 10 '14 at 21:36

9

@Trilarion: "Exotic languages"? That's pretty offensive. They're not "exotic" to those who speak them natively and daily.
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Lightness Races in OrbitJul 11 '14 at 9:21

8

@LightnessRacesinOrbit Exotic regarding to the frequency of which they are spoken. A synonym would be rare. Therefore it isn't offensive, rather a misunderstanding.
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TrilarionJul 11 '14 at 10:50

2

@LightnessRacesinOrbit I always thought that in natural languages there is hardly ever a 100% right or wrong. But I'm happy to admit that the misunderstandings was mine as long as we agree that it wasn't meant offensive. Using rare languages in chats just isn't a good idea - is what I wanted to say.
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TrilarionJul 11 '14 at 11:22

2

@LightnessRacesinOrbit The idea was that modertion must be ensured. Someone at the moderation level must be able to speak the language. While Hindi is spoken by many I don't know if it is spoken on moderation level here? If so good but if not or not by sufficiently many people I would still count it as kind of "rare" for the purpose of moderation. How many 10k+ Hindi speaking users who are actively chatting do we have?
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TrilarionJul 11 '14 at 12:27

1

@LightnessRacesinOrbit Okay, I didn't know that we have many 10k+ users speaking Hindi. In that case I think moderation of flagged chat messages is no problem. For other languages which are more rare among the 10k+ users moderation might be difficult however.
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TrilarionJul 11 '14 at 12:31

1

@LightnessRacesinOrbit: Given that almost all of these end up as "valid", even though (from what I hear) almost none of them are, tells me that there aren't that many 10k+ Hindi speaking users.
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Madara UchihaJul 11 '14 at 15:17

@SecondRikudo - Perhaps moderators should state their language(s); and chat should require a language. Then, flagged comments can be routed to a moderator who speaks the language. Its not a perfect solution, but it should reduce cross-contamination for those who don't speak the language.
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jwwJul 12 '14 at 7:42

1

@GerbenRampaart: It's not reasonable to have an opinion any more? Well, thank you for your input, your majesty.
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Lightness Races in OrbitJul 12 '14 at 16:51

@AwalGarg of course I do. It's against the rules of this site. When [hindi.se] or [hindi.so] come online, talk Hindi all you like. That applies to any language, and that is the reason Stack Overflow em Português was founded.
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Madara UchihaJul 28 '14 at 7:47

2

@AwalGarg if you don't care for the rule of the system, you are not allowed to participate in it. Not acknowledging the rules does not exempt you from being suspended if you break them. That's like saying "I don't acknowledge your laws!" in a murder trial, it doesn't make any sense.
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Madara UchihaJul 28 '14 at 11:21

2

@AwalGarg What you are proposing is impractical at best, and harmful at worst. Not all languages can be translated easily, and not all languages have people who can moderate it. No. English is the language, and so we shall talk English. Anyone who doesn't want to talk English on Stack Overflow, is welcomed to not talk on Stack Overflow.
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Madara UchihaJul 28 '14 at 14:27

10 Answers
10

As previously discussed, we cannot effectively moderate non-English chatrooms. If concerns are raised over the appropriateness of a room's conversation, then either the conversation or the entire room is subject to deletion.

If you're seeing flags like this raised, re-flag with a mod-only flag and request that they do so. Link to this discussion or the previous one for reference.

This answer is completely missing the point. "We cannot effectively moderate" -> Take no responsibility for it, and be done, period.
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lpappJul 11 '14 at 6:50

1

@FinalContest You can't not be responsible for the content you host.
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badpJul 11 '14 at 9:38

@badp: are you responsible for the action the money spent on that you send to a charity? Not as much as you would like, and that is 99% fine, isn't it? You are just having good faith and trying to help them with good intention. Of course, if the situation becomes very sorrow, you can take actions, but that is neither the case there most likely, nor here. There is no point in being over-zealous about helping others with good intention just because you cannot sit on the top of the emperorship while controlling all the details, too, without inviting community members to do so.
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lpappJul 11 '14 at 10:11

@FinalContest Charity is a completely different thing from content hosting. Stack Exchange kinda have to be responsible for the content users post to the sites, because they're hosting it. Their servers are sending that content out to people constantly, and even putting a legal disclaimer on their stuff wouldn't prevent them from getting a reputation as "that site where you can have unmoderated discussions as long as the mods don't speak the language", which is very much not the sort of reputation they want.
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Billy MailmanJul 11 '14 at 10:44

1

@BillyMailman: that is a misinterpretation of what I said. What I am saying is that there is no point in having bad faith instead of inviting valuable community members who can moderate those rooms as the owners. I am not sure why they could not become moderators for that part of the network. Tell me, who moderates the technical content of a tag now? Not the moderators most of the time, surely, so what? The problem you strongly fight against already exists. However, this is not a problem in my book, but how a healthy community works; being inclusive rather than destructively exclusive.
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lpappJul 11 '14 at 10:47

2

@FinalContest I don't see how that is even remotely relevant with anything. The community, like it or not, is an English speaking one; this point is not up for debate.
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badpJul 11 '14 at 12:12

2

@FinalContest Let me try to explain Shog's point (as I understand it). Yes, sometimes you are responsible for the money you give to charity. E.g. knowingly giving money to a "charity" which supports terrorism is a criminal act in some jurisdictions (e.g. the UK). Similarly hosting a web discussion which includes promotion of terrorism is a criminal act in the UK. It is not a sufficient defense to claim that you (the host) didn't understand the language. So flagged content in an unsupported language must be deleted.
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MarkJJul 11 '14 at 13:52

@MarkJ: you do not get it, do you? What I am (and probably many others?) saying is that it is not any different from the current situation. StackOverflow is already community moderated. That is the site's main strength. Without that, Mr. Heyer and co would go nowhere. How this is different for community moderated chats, I do not know.
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lpappJul 11 '14 at 13:56

2

Just to clarify: when I say "we cannot effectively moderate non-English chatrooms" I don't mean "we don't want to" or "we haven't tried" - I mean we tried, failed, had a bunch of nasty stuff to clean up as a result, and really have other things we're better off spending time on.
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Shog9♦Jul 11 '14 at 17:20

@Shog9 I see but people of India prefer to use native language sometime in chat, they dont have any issue but I know sometime it creates a issue when people flag it wrong when they don't know what exactly it mean. Can't you go to have a moderator who are from India and can review these stuff in good aspect that won't create any issue anymore after that.
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TGMCiansJul 14 '14 at 4:32

@TGMCians Moderators are elected by the community. You can't just make someone a moderator and order him to be in chat all the time and handle flags. That's not how it works.
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Madara UchihaJul 14 '14 at 7:13

I appreciate and even half agree with the intention behind this, but I don't think it's enough of a problem to ban non-English chat rooms. That seems pretty draconian; chat rooms do not need to be as stringent as SO main. We already allow pretty arbitrary conversation in chat so I don't see why we should be restricting language.

Half the flags raised may already be about topics you know nothing about, or about a scenario for which you don't have the backstory, and in those cases you hit "not sure" and get the flag off your screen. I see no reason for the same not to apply here.

Looking at it from the other side, it would be immensely rude for a mod to step into a chat room and say "oi, no, you must speak the language of SO in here" when they're effectively doing no more harm than any other chat room about, say, a programming language you don't speak.

I agree. Chat should not be restricted like that. It has nothing to do with the main site.
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berserkJul 9 '14 at 10:43

31

I think the biggest problem here is: How are they moderated? How can Stack Overflow make sure it is not held accountable if people there discuss illegal actions or wares? What if people there post racism? A different language strictly reduces the ability to moderate such a chat room.
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Benjamin GruenbaumJul 9 '14 at 10:44

20

@BenjaminGruenbaum: You assume that all moderators, and people in other chat rooms across the network, only speak English.
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Lightness Races in OrbitJul 9 '14 at 10:45

I don't know a mod that speaks their language who is also active on chat.
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Madara UchihaJul 9 '14 at 10:46

7

No, I only assume that all of them speak English and only a subset of them speak other languages for every other language.
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Benjamin GruenbaumJul 9 '14 at 10:46

3

@SecondRikudo: I have reason to believe that you grossly underestimate the degree to which moderators lurk.
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Lightness Races in OrbitJul 9 '14 at 10:47

5

I actually know most of the Stack Overflow moderators because I myself am a moderator on a different site, and we share a common chatroom. There aren't many mods in general who speak the language.
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Madara UchihaJul 9 '14 at 10:51

There is also Google Translate if no "outsider" seems to be able to speak their language.
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user3717756Jul 9 '14 at 16:49

3

One more argument to handle chat differently: When creating an answer, a question or a comment you got plenty of time. Even if your english isn't good, you could spend some time with translation and finding the right words. But in chat you have to type fast to keep the conversation going.
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Christian StrempferJul 10 '14 at 9:53

3

This is the correct answer. Be inclusive towards the community rather than exclusive. Do not prohibit certain languages just because you want to moderate everything. Make a disclaimer that those rooms are out of your control, but allow the majority there to work together and leave it with the chat room owners how they moderate.
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lpappJul 11 '14 at 6:53

4

@BenjaminGruenbaum, StackOverflow is hosted in the US, not the UK. In the US, racist speech is annoying, but it's not criminal, nor illegal. Illegal wares are dealt under the safe harbor provision/DMCA laws. digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise33.html And in the US, a web site isn't responsible for the discussion of illegal actions in its chat rooms, unless those chat rooms are strictly moderated (so your argument for stricter control may incur more liability, not less so, at least in the US). That being said, I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not a definitive source on this topic.
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Stephan BranczykJul 11 '14 at 11:21

@LightnessRacesinOrbit, Nobody. The criminalization of online racist speech is such a foreign concept for the US. I just thought that the commentator was thinking that the site was hosted in an English-speaking country that had such laws.
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Stephan BranczykJul 11 '14 at 19:08

I don't think rooms without English should be removed. Although Stack Overflow is mainly English, there are many cultures and languages that encompass the group of people that make up Stack Overflow. Many popular rooms have multiple languages being used, Lounge<C++> by itself has German, Dutch, English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Japanese. Lounge<C++> also moves relatively quickly, so maintaining the fast pace with removal of languages other than English would be more troublesome than the situation you propose.

It'd be a shame to essentially hinder the culture pot that Stack Overflow has in yet another place. Chatting is completely different from the main site. It's a lot more casual so many of the rules of Stack Overflow don't make sense in the context of chatting.

That being said, on the topic of flagging. The issue with flagging is mainly due to the overall problems that chat itself has with flags. Many flags are chat local and don't make sense to the outsiders, but I'm sure you know that and this would be one of those issues that have taken forever to fix and probably will never be "fixed". The only thing I would suggest doing when coming in contact with a flag in a different language would be to be careful with them.

A chat flag is used for two purposes: offensive material and spam material. You can use judgement regardless of language to see if something is spam (for example, it links to some material that is "spammy"). Offensive material is something else entirely. This is something that is clearly subjective and in those cases it's hard to make a call to whether to accept a flag or not. This also crosses culture boundaries as well; even in English some things are considered offensive in varying cultures. Some think swearing is offensive, others don't, etc. The list goes on and on.

This isn't an easy issue to fix (or maintain) so in my opinion it's probably best to leave it as-is.

Somewhat unlike Chat.SE, Chat.SO is supposed to be a place where you can expect professionals to entertain professional, on-topic discourse. In programming, virtually all online documentation, code, bibliography, resources and so on are in English or require basic comprehension of the English language. Even in a more informal discussion, all parties only have something to gain by practicing their English.

Chat.SO has a long and verified history of trouble with its off-language communities. On the other hand, I am a moderator on chat.SE and I can't remember the last time I had to handle a flag that was not in English.

Even in the case of a flag on chat.SE that was raised in a language other than English, chat.SE has over 400 moderators that can deal with them — including moderators from the specific language communities covered on the site. Chat.SO, on the other hand, is much shorter on diamond manpower.

So it only makes sense to have an English-only chat.SO.

Now, I'm not suggesting that there should be some sort of English Police that flags every sight of French on chat: I don't believe in moderation through Turing machines. If there is, however, a room that's not being held in English that starts creating even a hint of trouble, I would consider closing that room perfectly reasonable, with further attempts to recreate it worthy of a long chat suspension. Of course, moderators lack the tooling to police room creation effectively and a new chat account is only 20 reputation away, so again such a measure could only be applied where necessary.

Put it another way: if you did get 20 reputation on the site, you must've done so by contributing in English. Using that to start talking exclusively in a different language on chat means you are not on Stack Overflow for the right reasons; you could be talking in English, but you'd rather let the language barrier shield you from the consequences of what you're writing. There is a bajillion of other online chat services that are more than happy to host gossiping in whatever language. Chat.SO only stands to gain from not being one of them.

Google translate, bad as it is, is still good enough to show whether the conversation is "appropriate" or not. So even if no moderator can understand the language, …
–
WGroleauJul 9 '14 at 16:35

9

@WGroleau Google Translate chokes on both "Thodi der ruk ja yar" and "aaj kar de bhai"; it thinks the first is Indonesian and the second Dutch, giving no translation for either. If you know they're Hindi, you can switch to that language, accept the transliteration suggestion and get two inoffensive-looking messages back. Who am I to say that those inoffensive-looking messages actually are inoffensive? They might be in context. It might be something lost in translation. They might be making local cultural references that are lost on us. How can you know? Why did the messages accrue 13 flags?
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badpJul 9 '14 at 16:49

On Chat.SE I know I can rely on the other ~410 moderators and 10kers to make this call. There are language-specific communities that can look at the transcript and vote on the flag in a meaningful way. None of that's necessarily true on chat.SO
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badpJul 9 '14 at 17:01

"Chat.SO has a long and verified history of trouble with its off-language communities." What is this trouble you speak of?
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Matheus MoreiraJul 11 '14 at 13:21

@MatheusMoreira: Firstly, you can't moderate in a language you don't understand. Stack Exchange is directly responsible for the content posted all across its sites, and that includes chat, when a flag comes up, I for once have no way of knowing what it is, if it's valid, and can't even lookup the context! Second, let's not pretend we don't have severe content and behavioral problems with certain... geographic subcultures, shall we?
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Madara UchihaJul 12 '14 at 12:41

@SecondRikudo Stack Exchange is not held liable for the content posted in here. It's in its terms of service, section 9.
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RapptzJul 14 '14 at 4:29

2

@Rapptz: Of course they are. Those terms of service are a "contract" between you and Stack Exchange. They don't reduce Stack Exchange's responsibility and accountability in front of the law. Trust me, I've been there.
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Madara UchihaJul 14 '14 at 7:04

I think any decision on this has to take into account an important fact of life: There are many programmers in the world who have reasonably good technical English skills, and so can contribute to SO, but for whom it is a second or third language.

I can see a lot of value in those programmers being able to discuss a potential question in a chat room that uses their first language, before posting it. At least that use of chat rooms should be supported and encouraged.

Maybe a non-English chat room should be required to have a moderator squad with at least a total of e.g. 10,000 reputation each of whom has native speaker fluency in the chat room's language. They would be responsible for monitoring the chat room.

I think chatting in other language is nothing bad except one thing --- it's not understandable by other language users. (which is annoying and prevents proper moderation) I think adding a property to set major languages of a chat room will solve this issue. Then people in rooms of matching languages will get the notification.

Even further, a heuristic to detect a language can be applied where possible.

@SecondRikudo I agree. Heuristic seems to be almost impossible.
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EonilJul 10 '14 at 7:58

I'm not sure that's true. For some phrases it might be ambiguous, but often distinctive words give it away. For example, I don't know Hebrew, but the first Google search result for "medaber" is Useful Hebrew Phrases - Omniglot. So it would be quite possible to auto detect that that is Hebrew.
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David ConradJul 10 '14 at 19:30

@DavidConrad That also sounds reasonable. Though I am not a natural language expert, but there can be a part where can be covered by heuristics.
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EonilJul 10 '14 at 19:38

While not a blanket fix, would it be possible to get assistance from senior users on the various language SE sites? If there are enough people interested in ex German to maintain a site for it, then it seems there's a reasonable chance of someone being willing to keep an eye on ex a German Programmers chatroom on SO.

Adding cross site chatrooms would make this easier. Using the same example if the German Programmers chatroom was on both SO and German.SE it would broaden the pool of people who have both the language skills needed to understand the content and rep needed access the moderation tools.

The solution is language specific stack overflow sites like we have for Spanish.
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Madara UchihaJul 9 '14 at 15:39

@SecondRikudo It appears that type of site is on hold pending upgrades to the core SE platform. For languages with enough support to sustain an entire site, that'd be the best option when it's available. My suggestion is potentially doable now, and if not would probably require less work by SE developers. It could also scale out a lot farther. Specific language versions of most of other *.SE sites probably would fail from low usage; but that would make moderating a cross site chatroom only require minimal effort.
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Dan NeelyJul 9 '14 at 15:54

The main site is different from the chat section. I don't agree on banning non-English chat rooms. People must be allowed to share and explain their problems in their language on in at least the chat section. It's not spamming or offensive.

For the flagging system, I think only the chat room owners must be notified of flagged messages. It will be his duty to keep the chat room clean. And I don't think other users might be having problems if two different people are talking in some different language.

Given that I posted this message, and I am not a moderator, should be enough of a hint to tell you that chat flags are not mod only. Everyone with 10k reputation or more can see those flags.
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Madara UchihaJul 9 '14 at 11:02

1

@SecondRikudo I was suggesting that flags should be for chat room moderator only.
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berserkJul 9 '14 at 11:03

This was discussed to death. I am suggesting a policy change rather than a software change, because it's much easier to implement. Also, the problem begins when it does become spamming or offensive, and no one has the tools to correctly deal with the problem because there are very little capable users who speak the language.
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Madara UchihaJul 9 '14 at 11:04

1

@SecondRikudo And how will you manage it? Are you suggesting to close the chatroom if someone come there and speak in different language? I don't find any reason for other users to be bothered by notifying about other chat rooms.
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berserkJul 9 '14 at 11:10

3

I am suggesting that rooms should be primarily in English. I don't mind the occasional message in whatever language, but the main discussion should be in English.
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Madara UchihaJul 9 '14 at 11:11

This is a terrible idea all around. Flags being shown to every single 10ker ensure that no one room can drift too far from what's generally acceptable network-wide, and this is a good thing.
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badpJul 9 '14 at 12:25

@badp and what if room owners can do the same thing too as 10k+ users for their rooms only not network wide?
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TheLittleNarutoJul 9 '14 at 12:31

@TheLittleNaruto If you're simply suggesting that room owners get notified about flags in addition to all other 10kers, that might be reasonable.
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badpJul 9 '14 at 12:34

Please disallow other language than Chinese and Arabian - that is stupid to convert all people to one language, one thinking - you should learn other languages and do not be English only :)

It will be no problem if stackoverflow will be multi language - Wikipedia has no problem with this and not promote "rasizm" like all must use English.

It is very important for young people which is not able to learn languages since it requires some years to master other langauges - so you block them chance to ask :)

For me this discussion is pointless and it is clear that is no problem if questions will be asked in any language and answered in any language - now with use translation tools there is not problem to show Polish answer to limited with English only now is not Colonial age - computer translation works good not perfect.

Let us finish English occupation esspecially if that language is not the one advanced or expresive langauges in the world - rather average and little cold and simple :)

Colonial age and slavery should be finished but looks that same idea rebirth - people should have choice not be forced to use English or be dominated by English only people.

My native Polish language is untranslatable to English since many grammar construction is not possible in this language what many time confirms me English language expert. I do not want to be forced by English only people they can learn as I can - whatever Polish will be hardcore for English people even Polish learns it two years more :)

It is one the most hard languages in many aspect apart reading and writing - no force order - no forced words (like a, an, this, the, is it, it is, ...) - no problems with pronunciation - very high expression precision - not like in English.

See how many people mark this with minus - it shows some state of mind against this idea :)

I learn't other languages but neither Chinese nor Arabian are among them. Chinese has too many symbols and Arabian doesn't write the vowels... it was too difficult for me.
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TrilarionJul 10 '14 at 10:54

1

Arabian is similar to Jewish that is why Bible translation is hardcore. Chinese is simple whatever not in reading/writing. Forcing English is typical rasism - the most people of world not using English or are forced to use English (Chinese, India, Africa). Colonial age and slavery is finished mostly :) My native language is much more expressive and I have to reduce all expression to very flat English - some grammar is not untranslatable at all - especially aspect. I am using the one of the complex languages Polish.
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ChameleonJul 10 '14 at 10:58

1

You aren't forced to use English. You can as well try to open up a StackOverflow in your own language or maybe there is already one. Just because this site decided to be in English doesn't mean that this is a sign of racism or that any of your freedom is taken away. Using one language, especially one that is quite easy to learn and English is quite easy to learn, has some very nice practical advantages like that we all understand each other. So there is no slaveray and colonial age anymore but StackOverflow will almost certainly stay in English.
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TrilarionJul 10 '14 at 11:05

You not understand racism - English only people with always hate you if you miss on word and never forgive you - it is common and often - I do not like to speak for example with some British :) Polish man will almost never say you that you not use correct Polish and definitely will never not use this as an argument to discredit or humiliate you. It is because we accept multicultural environment much more that British.
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ChameleonJul 10 '14 at 11:13

There is not possibility for SO for Polish - it is not mean that is not interest - see Wikipedia it allows Polish and there is interest. I want to see Polish SO or better multilingual but it is not possible now - maybe because some brains closed fully for such option so has not perception - it is like you have cut hand - you will not feel pain at all even it exisits :)
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ChameleonJul 10 '14 at 11:16

Let them hate me, I don't care. However I will probably also never learn Polish in my live because .. well because there are too many languages around and my time is too short. So in order to speak with each other we (you and me) must agree on a third language. There is no other way. English sounds ideal. And to hell with what the real English speakers think about the English of the rest of the world. We chose their language, they need to learn less, so they should show some tolerance. And if not, who cares anyway. As long as people understand me...
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TrilarionJul 10 '14 at 11:18

Multilanguage SO: Now this is the only interesting alternative to several single language SOs. You could propose it here and we might discuss it. You might even add that small languages have a difficult time otherwise. But I guess the people here will probably not be that broad-minded about the idea, programmers tend to think that English is almost like what C is for programming languages. Then you maybe could accuse someone of racism but practically this won't change anything probably.
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TrilarionJul 10 '14 at 11:21

I agree with you roughly or more softly. I think that it is impossible since stet of mind of some people :) I also think that marking this as duplicate is simple expression of some kind censorship mixed with hidden racism or other hidden agendas. Some people as such political correct that hard understand the true goals - to hidden :)
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ChameleonJul 10 '14 at 11:34

Interesting post by some IT guy who lived/is from Poland (discuss.area51.stackexchange.com/a/11922/113754). He says that in Poland almost everyone in IT is used to English, unlike Germany for example. I really love my german language, but if the chance of finding a better answer is higher on the english version and it is, I would never use a localized version.
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TrilarionJul 10 '14 at 12:19

Word bro. We're smart people here. We don't need to ban non-english, we need to get better at internationalization. If we don't understand a post, well we are engineers right? Engineer a solution to make it understandable.
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ShayneJul 11 '14 at 4:08

The flag system is broken, and not fix is in sight. So this is me making the best of a bad situation.
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Madara UchihaJul 9 '14 at 10:26

4

It's not the best at all. The best would be just banning people from flagging.
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PuppyJul 9 '14 at 10:27

1

Removing the flag system fixes the stated problem by the OP but it creates a series of other problems. This is hardly a "fix".
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NeilJul 9 '14 at 10:28

I agree with this answer - but I still think we should ban rooms only in other languages since those are problematic - just like questions in other languages.
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Benjamin GruenbaumJul 9 '14 at 10:31

We close, delete and suspend posts and OPs which aren't in English on the main site. Why should chat be different?
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Madara UchihaJul 9 '14 at 10:34

Also, note that this suggestion is only a policy change, not a feature change. It's much easier to implement and doesn't cost dev-time. There are a million other better solutions that won't get implemented, so what's the point?
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Madara UchihaJul 9 '14 at 10:35

1

Why should chat be different that you can't downvote messages? Why should chat be different that nobody maintains it? Why should chat be different that we discuss whatever we want? Fact is, chat's a completely different place, and this is really the smallest of the differences.
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PuppyJul 9 '14 at 10:38

When your response to everything about flags is "the flag system is broken", and you've repeatedly failed to explain why that's relevant or what it even means to you today, your response is totally meaningless and invalid.
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Lightness Races in OrbitJul 9 '14 at 10:39

13

@SecondRikudo: Chat is different from main SO in almost every conceivable way.
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Lightness Races in OrbitJul 9 '14 at 10:40